I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS. POSTINGS WILL PROBABLY BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.
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This post is about the findings from surveys commissioned by the Arts Council of Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru. The project was entitled, ‘Widening Engagement’.
These reports, or certainly one of them, prompted old Shippo at Llais y Sais to give it something close to the, ‘We Are At War With Germany’ treatment. (Available here in pdf format.)
Front page lead continued on inside page, completed with a full page of grovelling from the white supremacist running-dogs of the patriarchal imperialist-colonialist system.
The story travelled. Not only did the Daily Telegraph pick it up, but also, from that source, Andy Ngo, in Portland, Oregon, scourge of Antifa.
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This passage from the Arts Council website explains the exercise . . .
“At the end of June 2020 Arts Council of Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales advertised a tender to undertake a series of in-depth research conversations. Our aim was to widen engagement with communities we consistently fail to engage in our work. We received 34 submissions and after a detailed selection process and interviews we decided to appoint three organizations to undertake three very different studies.”
The reports from the three successful tenders have been submitted and are now available online. They are from: Re:cognition, Richie Turner Associates, and the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union.
So let’s look at them in that order.
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RE:COGNITION
The first problem I have with these people is the name. Let me explain.
There is a company Re:Cognition, with qualified medical people involved in specialist mental health services. And an annual turnover in excess of £10m. But this was not the company employed by Arts Council of Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru.
For as the report tells us, on the very first page, its authors are Jon Luxton and Lu Thomas, two Labour Party stalwarts from Penarth. (Where Luxton was once mayor.) And wouldn’t you know it – Lu Thomas has appeared on this blog! In ‘Plaid Cymru’s enemy within‘ (scroll down a bit).
Lu Thomas is big in Pride Cymru, and something of a trans fanatic, believing that ‘women with penises’ are being persecuted. Everywhere. By everybody.
Here’s her Linkedin profile. Where you’ll see that she claims to be a director of a company called Cognition.
Cognition Training Ltd, directors Thomas and Luxton, was put out of its misery in December 2018. But even when trading it never provided the income that bought Thomas and her wife their £500,000+ house on Windsor Esplanade.
The ‘Cognition’ name was also used by Luxton and Thomas in Cognition Associates. Which produced a website where the latest ‘News’ is from July 2013. Cognition Associates was never registered with Companies House.
And now there’s Re:cognition Wales. Or rather, there’s a website. Note that Thomas and Luxton use a lower case ‘c’, whereas the ‘real’ company spells it ‘Re:Cognition’. But again, this Luxton-Thomas company is not registered with Companies House.
One Lu Thomas company that was registered with Companies House was Pitch Consult Ltd. Incorporated July 15, 2019. Struck off January 5, 2021. No accounts were ever filed.
What I found interesting about Pitch was that the other two directors were Mitchell Theaker and Pearleen Sangha, who you may remember from their appearances on this blog. They were Labour councillors in Swansea; part of the student intake needed to keep up the bruvverly numbers.
Jon Luxton has also been rubbing shoulders with celebrities lately. For listed among the directors in Sound Progression Ltd, along with Luxton, we find Cian Ciaran, of Super Furry Animals, and late of YesCymru. This company was Incorporated June 10, 2019.
Given Luxton’s record its time can not be long.
A glimpse of what Thomas and Luxton do is given in this snippet from the NHS. They work for the Labour Party, in its various forms: ‘Welsh Government’, Cardiff Council, etc.
They also work for bodies reliant on ‘Welsh Government’ funding. Reminiscent of the jobs found for the nephews of made men.
To understand how it operates imagine a phone call from Corruption Bay or City Hall: ‘Oh, hello, Lu, love, how’s it going . . . listen, we want you to do one of your surveys, yeah, here are the findings we want from you’.
And this is why no ‘survey’ conducted by Thomas and Luxton should be given any credence. They are just Labour Party apparatchiks.
The worry should be that these beneficiaries of Labour cronyism get so much work. Work paid for by the public purse. It’s naked corruption.
But it also explains why they were one of the 3 out of 34 applicants chosen by the Arts Council and the Museum to do the ‘research’.
Page 10 of the Thomas and Luxton report tells us (rather clumsily): ‘To note: only one respondent namechecked the Eisteddfod indicating poor reach into this community of mainly English speakers. this lack of Welsh Language art and culture was also demonstrated in the responses to all other relevant questions.’
I wonder if this ‘finding’ will be used in future by the ‘Welsh Government’ to deny or reduce funding to Welsh language organisations, events, and projects, or in other ways be used to undermine the language?
The quote above, from page 12 of the report, about sums up what Thomas and Luxton have to say – ‘Do what our friends in the Welsh Government tell you’.
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RICHIE TURNER ASSOCIATES
Whoever these are, they compiled, ‘A research report looking at the reasons why D/deaf, disabled, learning disabled and neurodiverse people do not attend arts events or visit National Museums’ Wales or attend very infrequently’.
While that may have been the ostensible reason for recruiting Richie Turner, his Linkedin profile makes his political leanings very clear. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a colourful Linkedin header.
Or one less relevant to Wales.
Richie Turner is of course another Corruption Bay insider. His jobs and appointments listed on Linkedin suggest someone with strong Labour Party connections. For no one in Wales without Labour Party connections could dream of a CV like that.
So what does the Richie Turner Associates report have to say? Though before you read it, I should say that Richie Turner Associates is not a company or a partnership, just an ad hoc group of his friends and, well, associates.
Richie lives in Hay-on-Wye, which is handy for the books, and the festival.
Those who helped him compile his report, also live in the south east. In fact they all seem to live in Cardiff and Gwent. One of them, Lyndy Cooke, is a former director of the Hay Festival. Nice.
Though the report tells us (page 4): ‘Our research engaged with people across all regions of Wales.’
Possibly. But how well do Richie Turner and his gang know these far-flung ‘regions’?
It might also be asked how well Turner knows his associates. For the woman named throughout the report as ‘Mary Allen’ is surely Mary Allan.
There’s little to take issue with in the Richie Turner Associates report. It’s just a litany of complaints followed by a few recommendations. And concluding with some comic book-style illustrations!
Flicking through it a few things caught my jaundiced eye.
This, for example (page 27): “Arty farty type messaging on advertising, such as Gothic and trendy typefaces also make it hard to read from a few feet away in a wheelchair”.
Who could argue with that?
Whereas I found this a little confusing (page 30): “Some places like museums are too big, with too many people. I need less people to be able to go”.
We obviously can’t have empty museums. Museums that attract no visitors will be closed.
All in all, this contribution from Richie Turner Associates may be regarded as the bland filling between two very unappetising slices of bread.
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THE WELSH ARTS ANTI-RACIST UNION (WAARU)
It’s difficult to know what to make of this one. For a start – what or who is the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union?
I found a Twitter account. I think we can assume that it was started in the period of hysteria following the killing of George Floyd, some 5,000 miles away.
In fact, the WAARU Twitter account started up a week or so after the Arts Council and Amgueddfa Cymru decided to launch their ‘research conversations’ at the end of June 2020. What an amazing coincidence!
The first tweet was on July 6, 2020, followed by a flurry of tweets that ended on August 11. There was nothing then until a retweet on Oct 20. A further retweet in November, another in December. Then nothing until April 18 and 19. A final retweet on May 14, attacking Israel, and nothing since.
Why hasn’t the Twitter account rejoiced in WAARU’s participation in this exercise? I find this very odd.
We can reasonably assume that the WAARU leans politically to the left, maybe quite far to the left.
There is no website for the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union. Just a Gmail address on the Twitter account. So I wrote on Friday morning. I’m still waiting for a reply.
Anyway, here is the report produced by Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union. However you look at it, it is a remarkable document.
It suggests that the Welsh language is racist and the Arts Council and Amgueddfa Cymru are both run by white supremacists.
There are ten references in the report to these organisations being ‘white-led’. But in a country that is 95% or more white does the writer expect them to be non-white-led? That would make them grotesquely unrepresentative.
There are also references to Black Lives Matter, reminding us that the report is very much of the post-Floyd era. Summed up perhaps with this paragraph from page 24: ‘One participant asked how Amgueddfa Cymru could see itself as combating poverty, when it’s very purpose involved displaying objects from countries whose wealth had been plundered through colonialism.’
No, that is not its ‘very purpose’. What a stupid and insulting thing to say! If Amgueddfa Cymru has a ‘very purpose’ then it’s to celebrate the history of Wales.
But that is not atypical. For a number of times this report comes across as either ignorant of recent Welsh history, or misinformed, or just mischievous. Here’s another example, from page 18.
There is no ‘Welsh Census’, it’s organised by the Office for National Statistics in London. Not so long ago you couldn’t even describe yourself as Welsh on the census form. That’s why I was one of those protesting before the 2001 census.
But the writer of the WAARU report presents the census as more evidence of structural racism within Wales!
Having mentioned the writer, I ask again – who is it? Because there is no name mentioned anywhere in the report. It is anonymous. So why was it accepted? Or to go back to the beginning, why was the WAARU commissioned to write a report?
Are we to believe that out of the 31 rejected applicants there wasn’t one better qualified!
On page 36 we read this passage: ‘Marginalised artists and art workers should receive support to learn different languages, in addition to Welsh. This additional support is necessary because Welsh language policies in current applications can exclude Black and non-Black people of colour’.
What ‘different languages’ are needed in Wales?
The writer is clearly ignorant of the fact that many ‘Black and non-Black people of colour’ were brought up speaking Welsh, or else have learnt to speak Welsh.
And while there’s solidarity implied with the term ‘Black and non-Black people of colour’ this solidarity is not consistent. Because the Twitter account suggests that non-Black People of Colour might be little better than Uncle Toms.
Finally, most reports end with findings and recommendations. The report from the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union ends with ‘Our List of Demands’. It sounds almost threatening. Like a kidnappers’ note.
Whoever wrote this report may have legitimate grievances, but they’ve gone about airing those grievances in entirely the wrong way.
The national institutions of Wales exist to reflect and to serve the culture, history, identity, and people of Wales. The Welsh language is central to Welsh identity, and for many centuries served as the identifier of Welshness.
Maybe the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ can also remember that.
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UPDATE 24.08.2021: Checking the metadata of the three published reports gives Jon Luxton as the author of the Re:cognition report, which is what I would expect. Him or Lu Thomas.
But listed as author for the other two reports are Arts Council of Wales employees.
There are a number of possible explanations for this. Maybe the original documents were converted from MS Word to PDF format at the Arts Council. If so, why? Those chosen to produce these reports were well paid to do so. Was this work at the Arts council deducted from their fees?
Or is there another explanation?
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CONCLUSION
The first report we looked at was produced by Labour Party insiders who carry out research for their comrades. The ‘findings’ are often used to justify legislation and other measures that the ‘Welsh Government’ has already decided on.
I wonder if the ‘Welsh Government’ would pay me to do a survey into the third sector, or housing associations, or tourism . . . or even the ‘Welsh Government’?
∼
The second report told us nothing really except that the Arts Council and Amgueddfa Cymru are doing a bad job when it comes to catering for those with disabilities.
Though much of the feedback was about venues, over which the Arts Council may have little or no control. And as for ’empty museums’ . . .
But that will be overlooked because the report gives the ‘Welsh Government’ another stick with which to beat both organisations.
∼
The third report is just a chip-on-the-shoulder, ‘where’s our grants?’ diatribe. To give it credit for being anything more would be to legitimise the anti-Welsh prejudice running through the report.
Whoever commissioned this report must have known in advance the kind of submission they could expect from the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union. Which means that the WAARU was paid to produce exactly that kind of report.
∼
Let’s remind ourselves who heads the two organisations involved.
Phillip George of the Arts Council was previously,‘ Creative Director of the award-winning production company Green Bay Media which specialised in high-end documentary projects for broadcasters in Wales’.
He left Green Bay on March 31, 2016, when he was appointed to the Arts Council. At that time, Green Bay had 14 outstanding charges (loans, etc) with S4C and Finance Wales.
Phillip George re-joined Green Bay on June 30, 2017, as secretary, though I suppose he could have been acting as a director.
The next development came on July 24, 2018, when all 14 outstanding charges were cleared. The company’s registered address was changed on the same day.
On January 14, 2019, a Declaration of Solvency was made and a liquidator appointed. Green Bay was finally struck off May 19, 2020. With George still listed as secretary.
Were those debts really cleared, or were they written off, or was some other arrangement agreed? And why was Phillip George allowed to re-join Green Bay while serving as Chair of the Arts Council?
I don’t know Phillip George’s politics, but here he is with former Labour MP Kim Howells. Does he share Howells’ attitudes to the Welsh language, devolution / independence?
Prior to taking up the post Amgueddfa Cymru chief Roger Lewis was CEO at that most BritNat and Unionist of organisations, the Welsh Rugby Union.
∼
It’s the third report, from the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union that’s getting the media attention, and quite rightly so, so let’s give it a few final thoughts.
Although the report ostensibly deals with the Arts Council and Amgueddfa Cymru, by questioning the role of the Welsh language and perceptions of Welsh identity its impact goes well beyond those two institutions.
Doing it from an ethnic minority perspective is clever, because attacking Welsh identity from a BritNat position invariably generates resistance. It’s much smarter to use the race angle, and maybe get some liberals and socialists onside.
Which makes it difficult to pin down the origin of this survey. Because if someone is trying to introduce Critical Race Theory into Welsh public life, for the disruptive effect it guarantees, then that source could be Marxist left or Unionist right.
Whatever the source, if enough people can be persuaded that defending Welshness is ‘racist’, then this will impact negatively on the growing interest in Welsh independence. The ‘racist’ slander can even be used against those demanding action on holiday homes.
Where does it end?
Maybe campaigning against Tryweryn was ‘racist’. And perhaps it’s ‘racism’ that sustains our national sporting teams. Why not just merge with England and join in singing GSTQ at Wembley and Twickers?
No one should be publicly funded to question a nation’s existence. Both bodies must explain why they chose the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union.
We, who’ve paid for it, are entitled to know who wrote the WAARU report.
Finally, perhaps the real lesson from this fiasco is that Wales must have independence. Not just from England, but also from Cardiff Bay.
♦ end ♦
What’s this about SKY blocking you ? I’m on a SKY internet connection ( TV, b’band, phone ) and I have normal service including the ability to write this.
I don’t really understand it. It’s just that late last night somebody sent me this, saying he couldn’t access my blog via Sky.
He/she need to go ointo the shield settings (the blue button) and change them. The default setting restricts a lot of normal content on a ‘better safe than sorry’ basis.
He/ she need to lower the sensitivety of the shield.
But there has also been blocking on Virgin. Someone’s trying to sort it out for me.
Hi
We have investigated the Website on your behalf and found the following
1. The website is blocked by our child safe filter as unsuitable content for minors.
2. There appears to be a mis-categorisation.
3. This site has been forwarded to our third-party list supplier for re-evaluation and re-categorisation as appropriate.
As soon as we have a reply we will let you know of the decision.
Regards,
The Virgin Media team
The jury’s still out on whether the WAARU is a put-up job or not, but either way it is unclear which parts of Wales they visited to get their “findings”, although the smart money is on it being Cardiff. This web page lists various individuals and groups who were “invited to respond to the Welsh Arts Anti-racist Union”. Although we are not told what they are responding to, it is likely to have been this anti-Welsh report. One respondent is recorded as being from Wales, others have moved here, the rest make no mention of a connection with the country, and their discourse is couched in relation to the UK as opposed to Wales. There seems to be a chunk of WG or Lottery Fund grant money in the mix.
https://www.mostyn.org/lumin
The WAARU, if it exists, is stated as being a women-only organisation.
If there was one thing that permeated the whole stinking mess of that ‘report’ it was a dire ignorance of Wales.
Miles off topic we have yet another tale of woe brought on by interfering liberals and wokey fellow travellers.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/fortress-europe-is-dreading-the-afghan-migrant-crisis?
Commentator says that Orbán’s arguments that migrants should be kept in the East now sound decidedly mainstream. By East they mean East of the EU ! Some hope of that with Belarus shipping refugees to the Polish border as part of their phoney war on their neighbours. Much of the EU consensus is falling apart as newer eastern EU nation states say not on you nelly pal or words to that effect. To the west, the older EU states are spouting faux sentiments while being very guarded about anything remotely like a commitment. These are the muppets who invented “women’s rights” fairly recently as a reason for being in Afghanistan yet suck the cocks of the Saudi royal family as a matter of course. Could be something to do with oil and other geopolitical calculations ? Nothing to do with women anyway.
Even Monbiot had a fit of writing a bit of sense in the lifestyle lefties’ favorite rag –
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/25/blame-afghanistan-war-media-intervention
pointing the finger at all sorts of leftie do-gooders and classic warmongers. Shame he doesn’t find the same clarity when looking at our country.
Orban is becoming almost ‘mainstream’ in lots of ways. Nobody is going to make the mistake Merkel made in 2016. And it’s not just eastern Europe. Denmark takes a tough line on immigration (maybe learning from Sweden’s mistakes). While in France, the presidential candidates are all moving right, to the point where Marine Le Pen has been outflanked. It seems they can say things that she – due to her history, and her father – can’t.
The left in the West risks imploding under the weight of accumulated idiocies that have lost it the white working class and reduced it to adopting ever more absurd fads and fringe obsessions. ‘Women with penises’ being one. Though fair play to ‘Welsh’ Labour, they threw that hospital pass to Plaid Cymru, the Lib Dems, and the Greens. They may be a bunch of bastards, but they’re not stupid bastards.
Michel Barnier will be standing for Les Republicains (their version of the Tories) in the upcoming French Presidential election, on a ticket of huge immigration curbs into France, a far stricter asylum policy, and a platform of EU-scepticism.
Polling shows that if he stands, current President Macron will be eliminated in the first round, and the run-off a week later will be between Barnier and Le Pen and is literally on a knife-edge.
So you could be looking at the next Presidnet of France being a right wing, anti-immigrant, heavily EU-sceptic, or a right wing, anti-immigrant, EU-leaver.
Isn’t Barnier one of that EU lot that was coming over all adamant that no one could leave the EU without being scarred for ever ? If so he done a bigger somersault than any of those gymnasts recently producing unbelievable moves in Tokyo. Amazing what politicians will do in pursuit of naked ambitions. A man to change France ? more like a man to enjoy the trappings of high office and do sweet fuck all !
People on this Comments List are asking for details of costs and who are the Consultants and Authors and for Report Copies etc etc.. If the answers are refused, then take it further with the Information Commissioner. This cronyism makes me feel sick. Why don’t you all ask Freedom Of Information Questions to the appropriate public bodies to get the answers you want and then publish what replies you get. I’m sure Jac will give you space to publish your findings. It will take a few weeks, but go for it now. Spill the beans on the lot of them.
Good thinking, Ioan. My FoI requests are on their way.
Yes, good points Ioan. I often find it can take up to a year or more to go through the process.
Request for information under FOI Act
Response
Request for “internal review”
Outcome of “internal review”
Request for external assessment by ICO
Outcome of external assessment by ICO
And that may not be the end of the process. There is always an appeal to First Tier Tribunal if you disagree with outcome of external assessment by ICO.
Those who live long enough may eventually get an answer !
Good to see a lot of scribblers, including a certain Royston Jones, turning out in force over on IMJ’s nation.cymru to vent opinions, feelings and ask questions about the crap dressed up as reports received by the Arts Council and the Museums governing body. I’m still of the view that although details of authorship are important the real flies in the ointment are those people in senior positions who approved the “investment” and received and approved the findings therein. All round bunch of dangerous lightweights who should be made to walk a.s.a.p.
That Royston Jones is a trouble-making bastard. Just ask any of those lovely people who tried to take over YesCymru, or hounded Dr Dilys Davies, or think women with penises are being butchered every day on the streets of Wales. But to answer your question . . .
Those conducting the ‘surveys’ were definitely paid. I’m just not sure of the amount.
This is why I’ve updated the article. Because metadata suggests that two of the reports were authored by Arts Council staff. What I suspect happened was that the reports were submitted in some other format and had to be converted to PDF. But how difficult would that have been for those commissioned by the Arts Council and the Museum?
Other concerns are that an ACW employee listed as ‘author’ helps disguise who’s really behind the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union. While Richie Turner, author of one of the other reports, has been an ‘Arts Associate’ at the Arts Council since April last year. Did he get paid to do the report and use ACW staff to write it up for him?
If nothing else, him being already associated with ACW, and then getting this commission, looks like another bit of cronyism.
In the absence of transparency it is fair to conclude that senior executives within Arts Council and the Museums body handed rewarding contracts to people with whom they already had a degree of contact within their own chains of command ( or is that too old fashioned a concept for these inclusive types ?). That being the case all they had to do was instruct them to compose a report as part of their day to day responsibilities, pay them a spot of overtime if necessary, and have a load of crap delivered at a fraction of the price actually paid. They would not be any more informed than they are now but at least their budgets, which they moan about at great lengths, would not be so depleted.
You should check out the story of Carol Vorderman and her holiday home in Pembrokeshire Jac. I see Phil Parry’s site has run the story today. She is bragging about it in all the UK press.
Phil Parry! That utter and ineffable bastard!! He’s been picking on me for years. What have I ever done to annoy anybody?
And when it comes to Carol Vorderman old Jac has got a soft spot for her. She can invite me down to her holiday home any time.
Well done for digging. Several people already spotted the anonymity problem, the cagey lack of reference on the WAARU Twitter account to the report and the fact that their last tweet was in support of BDS/attacking Israel, which is BLM/Islamist stuff. The demand for help for artists to learn languages other than Welsh also needs to be highlighted. Islamists make such suggestions too when it suits them, whilst also at times suggesting Welsh is linked to racism, etc. Muslim Brotherhood tactics in the west are to make use of anti-racism and anti-colonialism campaigns to further Islamist ends, specifically for Palestine. In Wales it seems they speak out of both sides of their mouths.
The real aim of Islamists is to conflate the use of Welsh as an official language with its use as a community meetings language, concentrating on the latter as a springboard for allowing alternative ‘community languages’, i.e. Arabic. The British state does not help here in that it has been allowing people to fill in the Census in all sorts of languages that are not official.
Once we take this parallel seriously we see how dangerous all this could be.
Reminiscent of the infiltration of Plaid Cymru. Anybody who speaks up against this openly risks being deemed an extremist, or at least that would be the likely aim of the attack on Welsh. Welsh speakers are being tested for how they respond here. In real-world terms for some people that could mean being reported to their local authority Prevent team. The reality is that people are being maliciously reported to Prevent in Wales for ‘far-right extremism’ when they are not guilty of that.
Sorry, I have nothing to say because my iPad, which I used to download this blog, was too far from my wheelchair. However, my local labour councillor assured me that he could arrange funding for an arm lengthening operation. He could not, of course, be involved directly, only at arm’s length.
“The Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union could be an inside job. That would explain the anonymity.”
Could be, it’s a tried and tested method to bring about change where none is needed. That or using proxy or third parties etc. to do it for them. Although it seems that in most public bodies, it really is just the general insane woke culture that’s taken hold like a virus, especially at the top positions. I’d say it’s mostly these leaders and managers at the top who have been seriously indoctrinated and are pushing this destructive divisive woke agenda – maybe a lot of them are just too institutionalised to even realise it.
It seems that the vast majority of the workers beneath them are emotionally blackmailed and intimidated to not speak out againt the crazyness for fear of losing their jobs or ‘outed’ as rational thinkers. The majority of normal workers at the Arts Council of Wales and National Museum should form a coalition and kick out their crazed bosses who are pushing this damaging and discriminatory anti Welsh agenda, because it will eventually destroy these institutions if not stopped.
According to the 2011 census, approximately 25% of Welsh-born people of colour – a comparable figure to the overall average of people born in Wales can speak welsh.
Another nail in the coffin of the WAARU case.
How much has been paid for these reports? We’re they for opinion seeking, without a statistical basis? Or fact seeking without a prescribed methodology. I hope no one has parted with any money. But then fools and their money are soon parted.
The reports were definitely paid for, but as I’ve said elsewhere, I don’t have the figures.
The figure widely quoted in the press is £51,000.
RT is more specific that this is the total cost to both ACW and NM:
https://www.rt.com/uk/532715-wales-arts-council-racist/
That would work at £17,000 for each submission. Nice work if you can get it. But you have to be ‘connected’.
As my old dad would have said “Fuck me, I never got that much when I was connected to Labour”.
This really getting stupid. They are not just liberals in the worst possible meaning of the word but out to totally bugger up the system and reduce it to social rubble. Taking over a wrecked state, or failed state, would be even more of a challenge for patriots and I am now thinking that’s what these cnuts are aiming at. If the juveniles can’t derail the indy cause at YC then the older brigade will hollow out institutions and hand over a crock of shit when the day comes.
Self-loathing is lucrative:
https://saveourstatues.net/resources/f/revealed-the-50-councils-sitting-in-judgement-of-our-statues
FoI requests are much needed to expose the full extent of the waste.
Does anyone know what RCT’s ‘Information Board’ is all about?
I’d rather not think about what the Labour Party gets up to in RCT.
The tender was let on Sell2Wales. The award notice can be found here:
https://www.sell2wales.gov.wales/search/show/search_view.aspx?ID=SEP345729
Estimated value is £50k. There is a requirement for Arts Wales to publish the exact award figure.
Of interest in the link is the description of the contract.
If I were Audit Wales, I’d be dropping Arts Wales Audit and Risk Committee Chair a letter to provide evidence of due process in the assessment of the not insignificant 33 tenders received.
I would normally say at this point, that Audit Wales would pull the ‘not in the public interest card’, but a little deeper digging finds a very recent report on a very similar theme:
https://www.audit.wales/sites/default/files/pdf_33_11.pdf
So….. having been furnished with a report highlighting what needs to be done, why would you then spend a further £50k on finding out…… um……. what needs to be done. Arts Wales were given the opportunity to respond to the findings of the Audit Wales output and clearly stated what they would do about it in the report!
Yet more waste, poor leadership at all levels and like other Audit Wales ‘findings’, will be swept under the red carpet of the Senedd and carry on regardless.
I noticed mention of ‘Future Generations’ somewhere. It seems to be regularly used to justify bullshit and the waste of public funding. Though I was surprised by the September date on the Sell2Wales site, feeling sure it started earlier. But clicking on the ‘Document Family’ tab brings this up, which takes us back to June.
It looks more and more like a scam to put money the way of Corruption Bay insiders like Lu Thomas and Jon Luxton, Richie Turner, and the yet to be identified Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union. In other words, to waste more public money.
All text book report writing probably working off some template and filling odd gaps in here and there to give it a flavour of “relevance”. File under B.S. Then repeat at some expense to reinforce the message that the organisation likes blowing its budgets.
The anonymity create’s a lack of accountability . The WAARU can say whatever they want , and no one can question them as there is no one behind the claim .
The WAARU could have individual’s that could benefit from the recommendation’s they lay out. We would not know this .
The WAARU has no website and no clear recruitment process. Just a gmail account and a twitter . . Is recruitement invitation only ? Or a closed shop ? What happen’s if some one need’s assistance , This is strange for a supposed union .
You’re not the only one to question who is in the WAARU Krystal Lowe , a choreographer and Mymuna Soleman of Privilege Cafe asked the same question . And at least one of them got hostillity in response https://twitter.com/privilegecafe_/status/1285197996452384768 this is halfway through the conversation .
Also why was someone invited to respond on behalf of waaru ? Why does no one want to put there name to the project ? https://twitter.com/MOSTYN_Wales_/status/1336289772575354882
Just clouds the picture further.
The other odd thing about the Twitter account is that it doesn’t follow anyone. If it did, it might point us in a certain direction.
A good piece. I believe there may be a very good case to take ‘The Welsh Arts Anti Racist Union’ and whoever is responsible for pushing the anti Welsh message at the Arts Council of Wales and Welsh museum, to court for racial discrimination. The Equality Act 2010 clearly states you musn’t be discriminated against because of your race which is is one of the protected characteristics under the Equality Act.
Race discrimination is when you’re treated unfairly because of one of the following things:
colour
nationality
ethnic origin
national origin.
The law says an ethnic group is a group who share the same history and cultural traditions. In addition, the group may share one or more of the following things:
the same language
the same religion
the same literature
the same geographical origin
being an oppressed group
being a minority.
Imagine a group of ‘change agents’ going to a predominantly black or Asian country like Somalia or Bangladesh and suggesting they “relax the emphasis on having to speak Somali or Bengali” – it’d be rightly seen as colonialisation and imperialism. Same principle applies here.
It’s also an attack on Welsh black and Welsh Asian people because it ‘others’, divides and segregates them, infantalises and patronises them and suggest that they are somehow unable to learn Welsh or be an equal part of the nation like everyone else. The people behind the WAARU report and the virtuous white liberals who bend over and self-flagellate at any given opportunity are jut the modern versions of the odious colonialist and globalist Cecil Rhodes and his ilk – with some race baiting and racial division thrown in for good measure. The modern racist and colonialist is no longer just a posh white man of course – he or she can be black, white, Asian, gay, straight etc. etc.
We know that the higher positions in most public bodies are rife with useful idiots who have been brainwashed with subversive identity politics and mind-warped and ‘re programmed’ by Common Purpose training courses. We need a crack-team of elite lawyers who are always ready to pounce and slay this type of blatant anti-Welsh discrimination and attack on Wales and its people. Because these attacks are going to keep coming for the forseeable future. This is another long battle to fight
I can’t argue with any of that. But the more I think about it the more suspicious I am of the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union.
The WAARU started tweeting in late June / early July 2020 – exactly the same time as the Arts Council and Amgueddfa Cymru decided to launch their ‘consultations’. Does that suggest co-operation? Insider knowledge?
And then, despite working on their submission for a few months, there is no mention of it on the WAARU Twitter account. Even if there was an element of confidentiality while the report was being compiled, surely an announcement would have been made in the past few days, when it was making the news?
Finally, we don’t have a single name for the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union.
More useful perhaps to identify key decision makers within Arts Council and the Museums. Within that lot there will be plenty who are at best indifferent to the Welshness of the institutions and have the potential to be hostile. Several pages about them on their websites.
The Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union could be an inside job. That would explain the anonymity.